Nasty Nike

I am going to begin to do a series of company profiles with the intention of helping myself and others to orient purchasing and patronage around Kingdom values and to push back the darkness wherever it is found...including the marketplaces. So, without further delay, here is profile # 1.

Nike, Inc.
Beaverton, OR
Phone: 503-671-6453
Fax: 503-671-6300
Web: www.nike.com
Email: sales@nike.com
Employees: 22,000
Earnings: $589,700,000.00
Revenue: $9,488,800,000.00

Human Rights

• Nike has admitted that it cannot guarantee that it's products cannot be made without the use of child labor
• Nike factory workers in Vietnam were exposed to toxic fumes at up to 177 times the Vietnamese legal limit
• A former Nike factory worker said while Nike provided its workers with housing, they were crammed 12 to a room and slept on wooden floors with no pillows.
• Nike was the recipient of one of the National Labor Committee's First Annual Golden Grinch Awards, given to companies for outstanding sweatshop abuses and starvation wages. In a factory producing Nike apparel in the Dominican Republic, workers were given 6.6 minutes to sew one children's sweatshirt. Workers earned just $0.08 for each $22.99 Nike sweatshirt they had sewn, which amounts to 3/10ths of 1% of the garment's retail price.
• Phil Knight, CEO of Nike, withdrew a promised $30 million donation to the University of Oregon after the university joined the Worker Rights Consortium, a group that monitors conditions in factories that make clothing with college logos.
• Nike offered Ralph Nader, the consumer rights campaigner and presidential candidate, $25,000 to "take a light-hearted jab" at the company's poor human rights record in an ad. He said no.

It is my intention to boycott Nike until these conditions change. In an industry that only understands the language of money, the only thing I know to do is deprive them of my money. Obviously, that won't make a huge difference, but a lot of people withholding their money from Nike could make a substantial statement. It goes without saying that I cannot force you to do anything. Ultimatley, the call is yours, as are the consequences of your decisions.

"If you faint in the day of adversity,your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death;hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, 'Behold, we did not know this,'does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,and will he not repay man according to his work?" -- Proverbs 24:10-12

Source: www.badcorp.org